ABSTRACT
The Reykjavik summit, October 11–12 1986, took place was remarkable considering the plethora of ominous setbacks which plagued US—Soviet relations. Most significantly, pressures in both capitals for such a meeting would not be deterred by even the arrest of American Nicolas Daniloff, upon whose fate the convening of the Reykjavik summit came to depend. Time magazine asserted that the US motivation for a summit meeting was because Reagan wanted to 'wind up his presidency in a blaze of glory as the leader who restored US military and economic might to a point at which he could negotiate a favourable arms control deal'. Perhaps by demonstrating the importance of the Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI) at the summit Reagan could convince Congress the importance of funding the project. The original purpose of the American deployment was to persuade the Soviets to scrap most of their SS-20s. An agreement on the Intermediate Nuclear Force (INF), therefore, appeared conducive to both superpowers.
